Red Hat Global Desktop delayed

Red Hat Global Desktop, which was developed for use in developing countries, will not be ready for release in August as planned. A new release date has not been published as yet.

An email sent to the Reuters news agency by software vendor Red Hat revealed that the new Red Hat Global Desktop Linux Linux variant will be delayed. The launch was originally planned for August. RH product manager Gerry Riveros went on to say that the new system will not be launched in September. Thus far no details of the reason for the delay have been disclosed, however, the delays do give the company time to develop and implement new technologies which will give users the ability to view more video formats on their computers.

Red Hat presented its Global Desktop to the general public in May this year with the aim of shifting the legacy desktop computing paradigm for a specific target group. According to Red Hat, users, requirements and technologies have changed so drastically in the past few years that the legacy desktop model can no longer satisfy demands and requirements. The Global Desktop will be looking to close the gap that has opened up between Microsoft's "Windows Starter Edition", a version of windows published for developing countries, and a full-fledged Vista installation. Starter Edition has too little in the line of functionality, says Red Hat, and Vista asks too much of the hardware. Despite this, Red Hat does not see the Redmond giant as its main competitor, but the free Linux distribution Ubuntu.

The Red Hat Global Desktop is designed for use on Intel computers, and Red Hat cooperated with Intel in developing the new system. Both see developing countries as the main target areas, which explains the need to modify both the software and the distribution model.